Big start after rough year for Jeremy Hellickson

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. ó Jeremy Hellickson, the American League Rookie of the Year two seasons ago who was just as effective last season, stands as a paragon of the fickle nature of batted-ball luck.

Brian MacPherson Journal Sports Writer brianmacp

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. ó Jeremy Hellickson, the American League Rookie of the Year two seasons ago who was just as effective last season, stands as a paragon of the fickle nature of batted-ball luck.

Hellickson this season struck out more batters and walked fewer batters than he ever has in his career. He got ground balls at a higher rate than last season. He allowed home runs at a lower rate than last season. And yet Hellickson saw an ERA that had been 3.06 in his first 400-plus innings in the major leagues jump to 5.17 this season, mostly because opponents hit .308 on balls in play, a huge jump from .224 his rookie year and .264 last year.

How much of that can be attributed to Hellickson pitching worse and how much can be attributed to sheer bad luck is up for debate ó but there unquestionably was a healthy dose of the latter. Any pitcher who increases his strikeout rate and lowers his walk rate isnít going to see his ERA skyrocket without a healthy dose of misfortune.

And so Hellickson draws the Game Four start against the Red Sox, charged with winning a second straight elimination game ó the fourth elimination game the Tampa Bay Rays have played in the last nine days.

Tampa Bay manager Joe Maddon had several pitchers with better ERAs he could have chosen for Game Four ó among them Chris Archer (3.22 ERA), whoís in the bullpen. But Hellickson not only has similar peripheral numbers to those of Archer, heís not too far off from Matt Moore.

Hellickson throws his low-90s fastball for about half his pitches. His primary off-speed pitch is a changeup with more than 10 mph of separation from his fastball, a changeup Boston hitters have struggled to pick up. In the three starts he made against the Red Sox this season, heís gotten swings and misses with close to 30 percent of the changeups heís thrown. He threw 39 changeups in his last start against the Red Sox, and he got 13 swings and misses with that pitch alone.

Dustin Pedroia, Mike Napoli, Daniel Nava and Will Middlebrooks all have had little to no success against Hellickson in their careers. Middlebrooks is 1-for-12 with eight strikeouts and Napoli is 2-for-14 with six strikeouts.

On the other end of the spectrum, David Ortiz has hit three home runs and has drawn seven walks while striking out just once in more than 30 plate appearances. Switch-hitting catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia has had similar success.

The at-bat

What sets Pedroia apart from other hitters is his remarkable ability to get the barrel of the bat on the ball even while he takes a ferocious swing. But two of his (relative) vulnerabilities are changeups and sinkers, pitches that donít allow him to get under them and hit them into a gap or off the Green Monster.

Pedroia is one of baseballís most prolific doubles hitters, so it says something that heís never hit a double ó and has just two extra-base hits in all ó in 33 plate appearances against Hellickson in his career. The other pitchers against whom Pedroia hasnít hit doubles include Shaun Marcum and Justin Masterson, right-handed pitchers who feature a changeup and a sinker, respectively.

Pedroia came up against Hellickson with Jacoby Ellsbury on second and then, after a balk, on third with two outs in a one-run game at Fenway Park in June. Hellickson missed the strike zone with three of his first four pitches, including a changeup on the inner half that Pedroia fouled off.

In no situation this season was the disciplined Pedroia more productive as a hitter than with a 3-1 count. He hit .362 with a .660 on-base percentage after he worked a count to 3-1.

The pitch Hellickson threw looked like a typical get-me-over, 3-1 fastball, the type of fastball Pedroia crushes. But it was a tailing, sinking two-seamer, and it wound up not down the middle but down and in. Pedroia got on top of it and rolled it to third base for an inning-ending ground ball, stranding the runner at third.

Matchup to watch

Saltalamacchia has had an extra-base hit in each of the three games in which heís faced Hellickson this season ó a home run in April, a double in June and a home run in September. He even hit a home run on an 0-2 pitch. And while Saltalamacchia has more than three strikeouts for every walk this season and in his career, he has fewer than two strikeouts for each walk heís drawn off Hellickson.

While Hellickson has a chance to neutralize the likes of Napoli and Nava, Saltalamacchia has a favorable matchup to deliver a big hit for the Red Sox.

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